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Smiley
Judge Smiley is both the first and third head of Black Ops Division, a mild-mannered figure with a harmless appearance and a ruthlessly manipulative mind. During his time, he was partly responsible for one of the worst massacres in Mega-City One's history. History He was appointed the head of Black Ops by Chief Judge Griffin in 2101, his main responsibility being to prevent an internal threat like Cal ever occurring again. Smiley would duly run a series of 'deniable' murders for the good of the city, and it's unclear how much Griffin knew or tolerated. Unfortunately, Smiley predicted that the city's population was unsustainable and that it needed a heavy culling - and so he covered up knowledge that East Meg One was planning a massive invasion, sure in his models that showed Mega-City One would, thanks to Dredd, win. He sent a team including Judge Frank to assassinate several Sov defectors in 2103 to keep this invasion a secret, a mission that (after he failed to prevent the death of children) would lead Frank to insanity. After retrieving him from the Sov Block, Smiley transferred him to Wally Squad because he "needed a man" in the division. Smiley disappeared during Judgement Day in 2114, presumed eaten by zombies. Chief Judge McGruder replaced him with Bachmann. Smiley had actually survived the zombie uprising and concealed himself in a secret labyrinth of hidden rooms within the walls of the Grand Hall of Justice, continuing to watch and manipulate. (As far as he was concerned, most mega-threats weren't his concern) In the 2120s, he ran a squad of corrupt former Judges in Angeltown - in particular, Miss Anne Thropé, who he used to manipulate undercover Judge Jack Point. A series of quiet assassinations continued to be carried out by Smiley and his assets, of Judges, foreign figures, and civilian activists. Blondel Dupre was one of his victims. When Bachmann attempted her grand coup in the aftermath of Chaos Day, Smiley set into motion a plan to thwart Bachmann's plot, using Judge Dredd and a brainwashed Jack Point and Dirty Frank as unwitting agents. He could have stopped it earlier, before quite a few people were killed, but decided it was necessary to let Bachmann expose her treachery in full. In the end, he personally shot her dead. Chief Judge Hershey was horrified and angered to learn that Smiley had been hiding just inches from her office for years, and that Dredd had not trusted her to know what was going on. As Smiley went back into hiding, she remarked that they might have "swapped one problem for another." In the end, however, she quietly allowed him to remain in position. Over the next few years, Frank, Dredd, and their select team of allies became aware that Black Ops' "stealth" Judge assassins were continuing to murder people. What Frank didn't know was that he was one of those very assassins, only knowing he was afraid of sleeping. Without authorisation from Hershey, Dredd's team began to investigate ways to detect and thwart the assassins. In 2140, Dredd made overt moves against Smiley (who had just had a prominent Sino-Cit figure killed). A weary Smiley told him to stop, as his acts were only designed to keep the system going, that the system was the only thing keeping them from extinction after the Atomic Wars, and Dredd was being naive to call his actions crimes: "We're fascists." When this did not work, Smiley used triggers within Frank to activate him as an assassin and try to murder Dredd. In the end, Frank killed himself instead and Dredd - left distrusting of Hershey, as he couldn't tell how much she knew of Smiley's acts - tried to sue for peace. Smiley's downfall was his arrogance that Dredd was a mere blunt instrument and icon that he could manipulate. As soon as he emerged from hiding, he was shot down by Dredd's ally Gerhart who, being on the Long Walk, was someone he'd overlooked, and whom Dredd had quietly instructed to be ready to take a shot at a specific time and place. Smiley's team was arrested by Hershey and Smiley, attempted to escape, was violently executed by Dredd: Trivia * Judge Smiley is based on and named after the fictional spy George Smiley, created by writer John le Carré. He was created by Al Ewing, Simon Spurrier, and Rob Williams during their collaborative story "Trifecta". * Smiley's hidey-hole is very cosy, in a chintzy, 1950s Britain sort of way. It contains comfy armchairs with antimacassars, an electric heater, a standard lamp, bucolic pictures on the walls, three flying duck ornaments and floral wallpaper. * He has an interest in classical music, though in the 22nd century that means They Might Be Giants. * It's not known who Miss Thrope was working for in The Simping Detective originally. When Spurrier decided to wrap his long-absent strip up in "Trifecta", Smiley was retconned as being the mysterious boss to tie it all off. * Michael Carroll would create another secret Judge conspiracy, Section Zero, run by Hubert Badger. Fans noted at the time that it was strange to have two such subplots running at once. * Category:Characters